Charges of bias in Lodi Unified layoffs

Sunday

Jun 21, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 21, 2009 at 7:24 AM

LODI - A Lodi Unified administrator has filed a grievance alleging district officials targeted women over 50 and black employees for layoffs while making budget cuts, and she claims upper management has retaliated against her for speaking up about it at a January Board of Trustees meeting.

Keith Reid

LODI - A Lodi Unified administrator has filed a grievance alleging district officials targeted women over 50 and black employees for layoffs while making budget cuts, and she claims upper management has retaliated against her for speaking up about it at a January Board of Trustees meeting.

Curriculum coordinator Anne Cecchetti sent trustees and district leaders an 11-page grievance letter early this week claiming her department was the target of budget cuts because its staff is comprised mostly of woman over the age of 50. The district also laid off black employees instead of white employees of similar stature, her letter says.

District trustees deny the allegations.

Cecchetti, 53, is one of six curriculum coordinators, the bulk of the department, who were either laid off or demoted during district budget cuts She will be offered a job as a teacher because she has 12 years of tenure, but will take a 20 percent pay cut in the transition.

Adding to Cecchetti's frustration, the district budgeted to hire two new curriculum employees at the same pay rate as the coordinators at the same time cuts were made. The job descriptions for the positions have not been defined, but were proposed as part of a future reorganization of the district office.

The district made 230 districtwide layoffs official on Tuesday, but fewer than 20 at the district office where Cecchetti claims discrimination is present. Teachers and classified staff are being laid off based on tenure, but the same criteria was not used for administrators.

"In all, there are five women coordinators, all over the age of 53, being cut and one African American coordinator," Cecchetti says in her letter. "Not cut were three white male coordinators and the principal of summer school, a white male."

The three male coordinators she references do not work in the curriculum department.

Personnel director Mike McKilligan said via e-mail the district would not issue a statement on the grievance.

Trustee President Richard Jones denied trustees acted in a discriminatory way while making budget cuts.

"Not in the least. We were looking at the ways we could save money. We did not single out any department or any single person," Jones said.

Cecchetti names several administrators she has been in conflict with since she publicly voiced her concerns of age discrimination at a Jan. 9 board meeting. She also points to Trustee Bonnie Cassel who she claims has a political agenda to do away with curriculum coordinators since being elected in 2006.

The letter alleges Cassel violated education code by ignoring district curriculum policy to tell the Bear Creek High math department they could use books they favored over the district's newly adopted math curriculum.

"Could it be that because those of us in the curriculum department are in charge of (education code) compliance, we are being cut so that LUSD does not have to be compliant?" Cecchetti asks in a separate complaint she sent to curriculum coordinator Lisa Kotowski.

Cassel denied any wrong doing.

"I have very careful documentation," Cassel said. "I have worked so very hard and care too much about my work on the board to allow those allegations to survive."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday made it more difficult for employees to prove age discrimination. In a 5-4 vote, Justices decided that age must be proven the key factor in a firing or demotion, not just a contributing factor.